Cosmic Or Chemical
by scullystarlight
Summary: Set During 11x03 — Male and female agents cannot fraternize in the same hotel room. But this isn't just any male and female agent. This is Mulder, and Scully. Two halves of one whole. And they've been here before.
1. Part One

Title: Cosmic Or Chemical  
Part: One  
Author: Nikayla  
Pairing: Mulder/Scully, MSR  
Set During: 11x03 Plus One  
Rating: M

A/N: I haven't written a fic in a while so I'd love some feedback if I should continue :)

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 _"We'll think of something."_

The way she looks at him, she hasn't done that in...

The thought hasn't even been finished before what distance was between them is gone, an act that is all his — she hasn't moved an inch. He was close, closer, _closest_ before he even realized, the decision on a delay; two seconds behind the action, but following in exact synchronicity. Her lips are soft, memorable. He hasn't forgotten the texture or taste of her at all. It's been living and breathing its own lifetime, in a corner off in his mind, where they hadn't fallen apart. Where he'd always make her happy.

The Truth had always been most important. Still was in most ways. But somewhere along the roadmap of their winding and weaving time together her happiness had become of paramount importance, and he thought himself singularly equipped to provide it. He had been, for quite some time, but slowly the Truth had seeped back in, took up too much space, borrowed from where only she had been allowed to reside, until finally she made the Adult Decision, and moved out. He could only blame himself. And that Truth he'd still yet to find.

Now even more Truths alluded them, and yet he found himself once again only concerned with one, this time, the Truth of what they'd once been. The Truth of what he'd never moved on from, and never would. A kiss the most tangible piece of evidence to his theory that he could provide.

"Mulder..."

 _"Scully."_

He says it so matter of fact, like the decision's made. Male and female agents cannot fraternize in the same hotel room. But this isn't just any male and female agent. This is Mulder, and Scully. Two halves of one whole. And they've been here before. The second kiss is proof of that, both pulling closer at once, both certain that it's not just needed but wanted, not because she's scared — Dana Scully does not get scared. But when she does this is not the security she seeks. This is something different. Something almost predestined. Like who were they kidding these last long years? That they could stay apart indefinitely, indelibly, that they wouldn't end up right here all over again. The unspoken rule they wordlessly agreed to when they rejoined the FBI; to be partners in every sense but one, now wordlessly broken because words were not needed. Just a name, said just so, and a kiss.

It is not the kiss of young lovers, she knows, because they are no longer young. But it's not the kiss of old flames either, because that flame never really burned out. It's been simmering quietly in the background of every room, made brighter when a certain kind of look was exchanged. And there have been many looks. A flame that's waited so patiently, and now could burn down a house with them in it.

The hand he'd draped over her makes slow, practiced work of each button until none are left, and he touches her skin almost reverently, remembering how it felt from so many times before this. But then his quiet moment is interrupted, her hand moving to take his and slide it upward; some things never change. She hasn't changed. Her fear of growing old is completely misplaced from where he's sitting. She's still as soft, and beautiful as when they were (almost) still young. His hand engulfs her breast, two puzzle pieces that have never found a more perfect match. She sighs softly against his lips, _girlishly_ in fact, in part because it's been so long; in part because he's just so damn good at this. Her silk covered leg casts out on a rogue mission, sliding between his, just at the calf but it gets his attention. She always has his attention. Even when his mind is buried deep in a conspiracy she's there; a touchstone that keeps him from falling in so far he'll never make it back out. Telling him how wrong he is, always, about everything. Well not _everything_ , but all the things he needs to hear to stay afloat. His hand kneads at her flesh, thumb raking over the sensitive peak and she leans into it, seeking something more substantial. He's never been wrong when it comes to this.

A breath escapes from her lips, billowing out against his. It carries with it a sound; needy, demanding, it says she wants more without her even needing to speak. He understands. By something cosmic or chemical he can't say. She would know but he doesn't dare ask, not now, not when it could alter the outcome he wants to hurtle against. He feels her leg moving again, this time hooking over his thigh, lean muscle clenching, a counterweight to pull herself effortlessly above him. Knees press in to the pull out mattress and it squeaks beneath them, the sound combining with the low rumble she pulls from his lips, when her hips meet against his through too many layers of fabric. He grasps at her, with the hand that isn't still cemented to her breast; grasps at her slight, enticing curves. They've grown slighter as she's gotten older, and he wonders if he is the only one who can see she's only gotten better with age. Between the two of them, perhaps. But he's seen more than his share of fellow agents take note. Ones much younger than him, who think they have any idea how to be with a woman. This woman. The one who's begun grinding her hips against his.

Another rumble builds in the back of his throat, muffled only in part by a kiss. She smiles at it, lips blooming out at the sides, he can't see it but he can feel it, can feel her teeth pull at him before the kiss takes over once again. Her hands pull at the hem of his undershirt, his own reluctantly release their hold on her so she can pull it up and off. Nails meet his chest and every nerve stands at attention, pulsing beneath her touch, firing all along the line she drags down, fingers tracing muscle, somewhere between delicate and electrifying.

He can't remember the last time they were like this. Yes...actually, he can. If he'd known it was to be the last time he'd have made it last longer. But now, he supposes, it wasn't meant to be the last time afterall. And he hopes, perhaps foolishly so, that this isn't either.

The rhythm she's working up between them has always been her own. She likes being in control, and he likes letting her be; most times, at least, and this is one of them. He wouldn't dare change a thing. This case is confounding, even he who thinks he has it all figured out can't come to a reasonable explanation to convince her reasonable mind of it. He isn't crazy. Perhaps in the morning he can try one more time. Hope that at the end of the afterglow she might finally believe him. As if that has ever worked before. _"Mulder,"_ she whispers it, half gravel half silk. Wantonly she proffers his name, tells him everything she desires within two syllables; he can't remember the last time she said his name like that.

Yes, he can.

All at once he gathers her to him, hands gripping at her, the bed squeaks and clanks as he flips their position. He hadn't meant to but now, hearing his name and all it asks of him, it happens on pure instinct. On memory almost full, but still wanting for more pieces of them. The puzzle that could never be complete. There's always more to add to it; he wonders what color this part will be. Perhaps it will be blue. Cerulean — God no, anything but cerulean blue. This will be a deep, dark navy. The color of the silk he pulls down her legs, mingled with the cream of her complexion; a pale, soft color, that compliments the tan of his skin. Or so he's always thought.

His strong fingers press against her thighs, she shouldn't be letting this happen, not on a case, in a room bought and paid for by the Bureau, but she honestly doesn't give a damn. Not when he's looking at her like he is, not when he's touching her like he is. His hands feel rough against her skin, and it's that roughness she craves. He doesn't treat her like porcelain, he never has — he's watched on while others might think she was in over her head, because he knows she is capable; she knows her limits, and if she reaches them he will be there. He's always been her equal, her opposite, her perfect _other_. Not a hero she didn't ask for and didn't need. He had always been exactly what she needed. And that's much more than she can say of other men. They had tiptoed around each other for years, neither wanting to breech that line of impropriety, save for a kiss one New Year's Eve, that they'd never spoken of since. There was no need to really, not when there have been so many since then.

Her hands find his face in the dim glow of the room, pulling him to her to share yet another, a languid, desperate kiss. With every breath she's surrounded by the scent of him, til it burrows into her very bones. That musk that lingers on all his clothes, and sometimes hers, when in recent months they've been close — too close — and yet not as close as this. It will settle against her skin before they're done, intermix with her own; sweat, sex, pheromones. Memory, yet again, of when their scent was always at some stage of combination, never drifting far from one another; visions not unlike his slide machine flicker one after the next in her head.

Nails drag against his skin once again, this time at his back, clawing at him to come closer, until he feels her breasts press against him, the steady beat of her heart across from his. The cadence fills the void between his own thrumming heartbeat, their pulses in equal but opposite tandem, much like them.


	2. Part Two

A/N: Picks up immediately from where I left Part One, very longwinded and thick with flowery metaphor but that's just how I do.

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Their kiss is almost messy; a forgotten pattern they haven't yet lined up just right, but somehow that makes it feel all the more real. All the more necessary. They lost a part of themselves when she left — when his actions, _or inactions_ , made her leave. They were finding it again, case by case, flirting just at the edge of the line they shouldn't cross. And now they were crossing it, hand in hand, lips on lips. He slows the kiss into something a bit less frantic, makes her sigh again and her nails press in more firmly against his back. She wants more than he's giving and she'll get it, but not yet. He wants to take his time.

His weight presses heavier above her as he closes in, and what had not seconds earlier been a slow, not-yet-satisfying-enough kiss suddenly feels different. She matches him beat for beat, lips and tongue engaging in a dance, it makes her heart flutter. Yes, _flutter_ ; that cliche and teenage reaction, warmth and arousal pooling in her gut. He can feel when she relaxes, when he finds his way in to her pattern again, the steps he'd long had memorized. He kisses her for all the nights she's been left unkissed, as her fingers trail down and back up along his spine, ever so gently leaving her mark on him. Or perhaps more accurately; retracing marks she's already left. Her legs tangle with his once more, bare and soft, anchoring him to her, should he have any mind to stray. _As if he could be that big of a fool ever again._

Her body aches to be touched, to writhe against him, but for this long and lingering moment she accepts only what he's given. His closeness, his body looming possessive above hers, and a kiss. Her hands reach down and scrape his sides, as their breath mingles; hot, humid air between their lips. He shifts and his thigh grinds against her center; senses spring back to life as the jolt runs right through her — neural pathways lighting back up, and another sigh escapes her and ends up in him. Tension comes back in to play, her chest rising higher with each breath, legs locking tighter against his, and red lines already start littering his back. He hums out into the kiss, against her impatient tongue. He got what he wanted and he knows she deserves the same in return.

The next grind against her is more purposeful; a nudging little motion, repeating once, _twice_. Molecules buzz between her lips, he can almost taste them, feel her starting to vibrate through the third and fourth time. His hands grip her waist, almost encircling her entirely, but then they're moving up right past her ribs, reaching her breasts; fifth, sixth. Another rumbling sigh. His hands trace her by pure memory. He could map her with eyes closed and it would be the most topographically accurate thing anyone has ever seen. He knows her hills and valleys intimately, has touched every inch of her more times than he can count; as his hands begin to mold firmly against her breasts she's reminded of how they've always fit together so seamlessly. Slipped in to one another's space, no adjustment necessary; there was always just the right amount of room. A place etched out at their side that only the other could properly fill.

Her breathing grows heavier under his firm touch. The pads of his fingers kneading too long untouched flesh, while lips knead at unkissed lips. She arches harder into his grip, beckoning for more, and with one last deep pass of his tongue over hers he's pulled back, his mouth descending to her breast to give her just that. Lips find her flushed and puckered skin automatically, a magnetic pull leading him, his inner compass always set to her true north. Her nails slide against his scalp as a sharp exhale leaves her, chest caving in slightly at the loss of air and she pulls him tighter to make up for it. Closeness, she realizes, is more than necessary now. She needs him closer, burrowing into her for it's been so long. An arm finds its way below her, snaking beneath the curve of her spine, lifting her ever so slightly closer as he lavishes her breasts with tongue and teeth. Licking, sucking, scraping incisors, sending shivering quivering sparks down her spine, her hand gripping hard into his bicep for an anchor, her singular thought on repeat; don't stop, don't stop.

He doesn't. _He won't._

Fox Mulder may have been many things but a selfish lover he was not. That same focus he put in to his work was laid against her body with utmost force and precision. There were times in the beginning when she'd wondered if he was always like this with his lovers. She hated the word. Most especially when it was concerning a woman who wasn't her. _Jealousy is not a good color on you Dana,_ she told herself, but it didn't stop that petulance from rearing its head when he showed his attention to someone else. She'd decided along the way though that there was no chance those women had experienced what she had with him. None of them had spent seven years at his side before even sharing a kiss. The electric crackle that whipped and sparked between them was theirs alone, and when they'd finally allowed themselves to ignite, to burst into a shimmering flame, there was no way those women had ever felt like she had. And she'd made damn sure that none of them had made him feel anything in comparison to it either.

Teeth sink in to her lip as he leaves a particularly spectacular kiss against her pert flesh, a hum of approval escaping in response. She could swear she feels him smile against her, something in the curve of his mouth, in the swirl of his tongue and subsequent pop as he releases her before going right back in for more. A tug in his hair urges him on; _more_ , she says, and even more still. He hears it in her voice without her even needing to utter the word. He's heard it many times before; it carved an unmistakably deep scar in his memory long ago. An ugly thing if you were to really look at it, for all the times he held back just to hear her say it again. He'd aided in that scar's creation so much he'd grown to love it. Believing now that if he kissed her just right she might dig a nail into it one more time; _for old time's sake_ , if nothing else.

Her breathing increases, grip tightening the moment he kisses just an inch too far to the left, takes his time moving from her left breast to her right, the valley between them getting more attention than he'd originally intended. But her reactions are too precious not to. He wants to hoard them all away; fill up his shelving until the collection he's built spills out across the floor, until he can swim in her hums and hitches of breath when he's finally bridged the gap between lips and where she wants those lips to be. Her own part wider as she sucks in a deeper breath, skin just as sensitive and desperate for contact. _"Mulder,"_ she finally utters, wantonly; how long it's been since she said his name like that. He'll have to think of a special place to keep it, to remember when why and where it happened, how he'd begun to wonder if he'd never hear it that way again. Were they really so broken, so split at the seams they could never pull tight and find each other again? Had they really fallen so far apart?

 _Had he really gotten so lost?_

He was finding himself again, in her, in time spent at her side; in time spent wading in the ocean of her eyes. Finding shells and fractured segments of who he'd been; the man she'd followed and would have again, until he'd delved too dark and too deep, until even her eyes could not illuminate him, could not call him back in. He was a shipwreck on the rocks too far from her reach. He'd marooned himself there, away from her touch, burned in the sun without the cool blue of her gaze to soothe him. But now he was finding his way back. He'd made it through the dangerous labyrinth of rocks, passed rip currents and chasms so deep that had he fallen in he'd have never been heard from again. He could see her on the shore, distant; almost a mirage, but he knew better. Knew that even still she would be waiting. She would live her life in the sun, check back for him by light of the moon. He'd made it to the shallows and she was there, clear and beautiful, night air blowing long red tresses away from her face, drawing him near. A siren who'd stepped out of the sea's foam, calling him not to ruin but to safety. He'd stopped just at the water's edge, the line in the sand they agreed they wouldn't cross, but now the tide had risen, blurred the line into nothingness, she was in his arms in an instant, with no barrier between the water and dry land to keep them apart. He could hold her now, as she clung to him, and the words she'd just said in the dark; of him finding someone else, that he could want for anyone else — were undone with every sumptuous pass of his tongue.

He finally moves lower to lavish her sternum with kisses, her slight muscles more visible than when they were still young. She'd whittled her body down over time, no longer a soft outer shell; she was tightly toned all over now, this Scully who jumped over railings in stairwells and slid under dining tables. Who incapacitated men twice her size in dark rooms. Who waited on the shore far longer than she ever should have. How grateful he was though, that she had.

Her muscles contract beneath his lips the lower he descends, anticipating how familiar it will feel and yet how new. They've never been here before, this untamed path they're hacking their way through. The jungle that grew overnight when she left. Weeds surrounding coniferous trees and tightly packed bamboo shoots. None of it made sense together, there was no forest like it anywhere, but it had grown sky high as they left it untended. Only faint cracks of light split through the canopy, lighting up small pockets of arid turf where they met, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for only a minute; outside the aftermath of their breakup, before inevitably being swallowed back in to their respective webs of vine. But now they're armed as they confront it — the wall of plant-life that fed off their distance and discordance, fertilized and rooted deep — a hacksaw and machete between them, cleaving and slashing away bit by bit until they collapsed right here, into this very bed. He reaches down to stoke at the fire already burning within her, applies just the right amount of gasoline to finally burn their disillusion to the ground and salt the earth beneath it. No greenery shall ever grow in her absence again.

Somewhere after only ash is left he's moved himself down between her legs, kissing a line of muscle in her inner thigh, stubble sending little sparks of sensation trailing up before his lips have reached her — hot breath urging them onward, almost like a prayer. He's never been religious, but she is certainly worth this kind of worship. His tongue molds against her, like he's a sculptor and she his clay; the deft appendage playing at her like piano keys, searching for the proper notes. He draws lazy, languid patterns against her, searching for the one she always loved most; small asymmetrical impressions repeating until he finds it — when her hips flex just so, he knows he has — when her fingers thread deeper into his hair and name is heavy on her tongue, fractured down the middle, all consonants and few vowels because they just take too much effort. She melts under him, his willing artistic medium, as he manipulates the tight bundle of nerves at her center and she keens into a soft gasp that extricates itself from her lips of its own free will. She has not the strength of focus to stop it, and truthfully wouldn't want to. They're long past the point of pretenses; every slip of his tongue sends them further still.

Breaths come in deep, shuddering heaves the more he draws her in, licking and sucking at her flesh like she were a last delectable meal before he meets the chair. Her eyes flutter of their own accord, stuck somewhere between closing fully or remaining open, drifting down to watch his ministrations until he kisses her too particularly well for her to manage it, until her eyes have shot to the ceiling and she's thankful for the vice grip he's taken of her hips, keeping her in place lest her body writhe away without her consent. It's been long enough that she feels a disconnect, a lack of control between what her brain wants her body to do and how it can't help but react in the opposite. He weaves delicious words against her, two steps forward one step back, bringing her closer but not too close — drawing it out like he was always so adept at doing, keeping her clinging to him before she has much at all to cling to, with him wedged so far from her she can only clutch at his hair and graze his scalp; before he's even inside her himself. This may not have been the _something_ she'd been referring to, but then, perhaps, it was. She's not in the presence of mind to remember now, her memory altered the longer he envelops her with his utmost attention.

Glancing up at her, he catches her eyes only in passing, before he whispers the pink of his tongue against her so eloquently that her eyes are lost to him, and he tightens his grip to make certain they are the only thing he loses contact with. He should finish her, he will, in due time; but he can't help wanting to make this last, make it so good she can't help herself, can't leave this as a _one time only transgression_ before she's slipped back in to all her professional glory and he's left on the wrong side of a door again. In his animal mind he thinks if she comes hard enough she'll be forced to open that door herself. It won't surprise her when he's there, waiting, because she'll know he was expecting it. If he only does this right.

A deep aching vibration is building in her gut, drawn closer and closer by his lips, the line no longer slack as he reels it in, reels _her_ in; net at the ready. She's not a deadly catch but she is an elusive one. To anyone other than him. She's on his bait more readily than she'd care to admit, but he was always so clever at discovering elusive creatures. He's caught her so many times before they're almost like old friends. If a sailor had every really been friends with a siren. But then she has guided him through so many a storm perhaps that is what they are. _Friends._ He was her friend once, if you can count seven long years as once, that is.

She's reeled in so close now she can almost reach him, drops her hands from his hair to press in to the back of the couch above herself, pushing insistently closer in place of actually begging him aloud. But his name comes out in a way that may as well have been a desperate begging _Please..._ thank God and the archangels she can't see the grin he must be wearing because if anything threw her off right now she might actually scream. Instead it's a symphony of moans and gasping whimpers; indelicate sounds he hadn't expected the first time he'd heard them, from his oh so straight-laced partner; her face awash with ecstasy, so beautiful he could almost cry. He can't see it now but he can recall it in stunning clarity behind his eyes — full lips blooming like a flower, his tongue longing to pollinate her own but not yet, not until she's done.

She's reminded, fragmentedly, of exactly how long it's been as it hits her; undoes knots she hadn't even realized had formed. If he were a seismograph he'd be reading her at a 9.4; catastrophic if it were happening anywhere outside this bed, outside _her_. All at once she wants to kiss him, give back what he's given her, and not move for a week. The strength in her arms wane into nothing, but even when they fall limp he has her, clutched close and tight as he works her through it, his determination to leave her so fulfilled causes a tear to slip from her eye, lost into her hairline before he even has a clue. The tension in her hips goes slack, muscle and even bone thrumming from the weight of what's hit her — she doesn't even mind that he will have left ten fingerprint bruises in his wake.

 _"Kiss me,"_ she says to him in a breath, into the air, into all of the unknown universe for all she knows. He crawls back over her, lips catching at her skin as he drags so close, kissing over her breast to which she hums pleasantly, before he's finally in her line of vision once again. He kisses her slowly, ardently, nestles himself close enough she can feel his hardness on her thigh, reigniting sparks of arousal from a flame that hasn't even had time to die back out. She can taste herself on his tongue, mixed with his own unique flavors, and her arms drape back around his shoulders as they share a breath, intermixing oxygen and CO2, until she drags him back in. She has half a mind to stay just like this, but then he did interrupt her so quickly earlier. She'll have to see to righting that, just as soon as she's had her fill of his weight above her. Just another moment longer.

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Reviews are appreciated!


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